The Book of Jasher

Cited in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18. Contains the Song of the Bow (David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan) and possibly the account of the sun standing still at Gibeon. A text the canonical books quote as if the reader already knows it. Completely lost.

Aspect	Detail
Written	Pre-monarchic or early monarchic Israel — before ~1000 BC for the oldest material; the collection itself probably reached final form during the United Monarchy (~1000-930 BC)
Language	Hebrew (almost certainly)
Discovered	Never. Two surviving fragments — both quoted within the Bible itself — are all we have. Medieval forgeries circulate under the name but are not the real text
Attributed to	Anonymous. The title “Sefer haYashar” means “Book of the Upright” or “Book of the Just” — possibly a poetic anthology celebrating Israelite heroes
Canon status	Not canonical in any tradition. But cited as authoritative within the canonical books themselves

Joshua 10:12-13 — The sun stands still at Gibeon:

“On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: ‘Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.’ So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”

2 Samuel 1:17-27 — David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan (the Song of the Bow):

“David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan, and ordered that the people of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is written in the Book of Jashar)…”

The lament itself is preserved in 2 Samuel: “How the mighty have fallen!” — one of the most beautiful poems in the Hebrew Bible. But the Bible explicitly notes it was preserved first in Jashar, not composed for Samuel.

If the two fragments are representative, Jashar appears to have been a poetic anthology of Israelite heroic songs — something like an Israelite Iliad. Likely contents based on scholarly reconstruction:

Possible Content	Source Hint
The Song of the Sun at Gibeon	Joshua 10:13 — a poem celebrating Joshua’s miraculous victory
The Song of the Bow (David’s lament)	2 Samuel 1:18 — preserved as a teaching text for the men of Judah
Solomon’s Temple Dedication	The Septuagint of 1 Kings 8:53 adds “is this not written in the Book of the Song?” — some scholars emend “Song” (shir) to “Upright” (yashar) and propose another Jashar quotation
Other heroic poems	A book of “the upright” cited as a known reference would likely have contained more than two poems — possibly hymns to Moses, Deborah’s victory song, the wars of the Judges

Two later texts circulate under the name “Book of Jasher” but are not the lost original:

1. Sefer haYashar (Hebrew) — a medieval Hebrew midrashic narrative of biblical history from Adam through the conquest. Probably composed in 13th-century Spain or Italy. Highly readable as midrash, but not the cited biblical source
2. The Book of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher, 1751) — an English work claiming to be a translation of an ancient Hebrew manuscript. Almost certainly a forgery by Jacob Ilive, a London printer. Used by some 19th-century groups (including early Mormons) as if authentic

Neither of these contains the Song of the Bow as it appears in 2 Samuel. The real Jashar remains lost.

1. Not a religious text per se — A heroic song collection would have been read alongside scripture, not as scripture
2. Pre-canonical — Existed before any concept of “canon” was applied to Hebrew literature
3. Possibly fragmented into other works — Some of its content may have survived absorbed into Psalms, the historical books, and the prophets
4. Lost in the Babylonian destruction — The destruction of Solomon’s Temple and its archives in 586 BC may have ended the textual tradition

Tradition	Significance
Christian (Protestant)	Acknowledged as a real lost source. The two biblical citations are accepted as genuine references to a now-vanished work. The medieval forgeries are rejected by mainstream Protestant scholarship
Catholic	Same as Protestant — the canonical references are real, the medieval Jashar is not the cited book
Jewish	The medieval Sefer haYashar (the midrashic narrative) is read as a valuable rabbinic retelling of biblical history, but distinguished from the original lost Jashar
Mormon (LDS)	Joseph Smith and early LDS leaders quoted the 1751 Pseudo-Jasher. The current LDS position is more cautious — the text is “interesting but not authoritative”
Masonic	The theme of lost foundational texts — recoverable through initiation or revelation — parallels Masonic legends about the lost Word and the buried sacred books of Enoch
Esoteric	The idea that the Bible explicitly admits it is quoting a larger lost library is a recurring theme in esoteric biblical interpretation. The “real” scripture is bigger than what survives

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